We're not really mad geniuses. We're just a little miffed

Posts by accordingtohoyt

So I can imagine you guys looking at last week’s post and going “okay, so the second one when you were awake is sort of acceptable, but it’s still a lot of work, and what if we don’t have your familiarity with a graphics program?”

Well, fear not. Or at least don’t fear a lot. There’s still options for free or for money (for money if you want something more specific.) And we’re not talking hundreds of dollars. More like $15. Yeah, I know that’s sometimes too much. Which is why I started out doing this, for friends who wanted to try indie but hadn’t even that. Read more

Today we’re going to cover one of the topics that stop most people: where do I find the art?

I’ve seen covers made with pictures the author took or drew which are often stunningly inappropriate to the genre and book. And I’ve heard people say that they’d have to pay two thousand dollars for covers. This is ridiculous. There are many, many sources of free and cheap images on line. Read more

So, last week we talked about what the function of a cover is and what it is not.
To summarize: what it is not is an accurate representation of your book. Sure, it sort of kind of represents the contents, but the scene on the cover doesn’t need to be a scene that appears in the book. Nor does the character need to look like your character. Because before they read it, nobody cares, and after they read it, what matters is how good your book is.

Your cover is basically a billboard to sell your book.

So what does matter about your cover? Well, signaling genre does. Read more

Most indie authors have rolled, with relative ease, into hiring content editors and even copyeditors, (just don’t put either under “editor” on amazon. That editor tag on Amazon is for anthologies. You also shouldn’t put your cover artist under “illustrator.” Before I figured out that clueless authors were doing that, I passed up a bunch of books because I thought “An illustrated hard boiled mystery? Too weird for words.” That tag is there for actual illustrated books.) or figuring our how to swap with other indies for these services (which amounts to hiring) or other more creative arrangements.

One stumbling block remains in most writers’ publication schedule: covers. Read more

Sit back and take a deep breath, people, because I’m going to say something that once got me branded various kinds of nasty and which is very controversial.

Are you ready? Take a deep breath.

Men and women are different. They’re different beyond the fun vive la difference. They’re different in the head, different in how they react to things. Hormones shape them from the womb, shape them even more so after puberty.

And they’re particularly different in aggregate, which is to say in groups. Read more